Context Principle (CP) in Frege’s Views

Context Principle (CP), according to which it is only within a context that a word has bedeutung (meaning), has a significant position and role in Frege’s views. Different understandings of CP have been proposed by commentators, and differences in interpretations have increased to the extent that some commentators have even denied the attribution of it to Frege. On the other hand, in the last decade of the nineteenth century, Frege divided semantic content into two components: sense and reference. However, CP is only mentioned in Grundlagen (1884) and is not repeated in other works of Frege. Hence, there is a debate among commentators as to whether Frege had stopped believing in that principle; and if not, which interpretation of the meaning, sense or reference, is more consistent with that principle. In this paper, different views have been reviewed and finally the possibility of retaining CP by Frege has been supported. It is claimed that since Frege’s main aim in introducing CP is to show the “content objectivity” of expressions, it makes no difference whether that principle is interpreted in terms of sense or in terms of reference, because in Frege’s logical system, both kinds of bedeutung (meaning) have objectivity.